RELIGIOUS NEWS AND NOTES.
—Rev. Stephen H. Tyng, Jr., says that at least one thousand joined the various churches in New York, as the result of Moody's meetings, and scores of drunkards who were reformed and converted hold out to-day. —Last month the Episcopal Methodists of held a camp-meeting in Lucknow, India, which continued eight days and was attended by native Christians from Calcutta, Cawnpore, Allahabad and Agra. It was here that a general massacre of European Christians took place some twenty years ago. —Trouble threatens the Protestant missions in Mexico in consequence of the revolution now in progress there. A mission-house in one of the cities was recently surrounded by a Catholic mob and only escaped demolition by the timely arrival of troops. Whatever party finally secures the government, it is hoped that religious liberty will be guaranteed as under the old regime. —In one respect at least, some of the heathen nations put Christianity to shame. Madagascar, nearly the largest island in the world, being almost thrice as large as Great Britain, is an island nearly a thousand miles long, with mountains rising one thousand feet above the sea. In the capital of this island liquor is not allowed to be drunk, and drunkards are unknown, save at seaport places where Europeans are found. —Another Romish "miracle" has come to nought. Three children living at Marpingen, Prussian Rhineland, last summer declared that they had repeatedly seen the Holy Virgin in a wood close to their village, and their glowing asseverations, backed by the clergy, attracted thousands of pilgrims to the sacred spot. But alas! the children were recently tried by Judge Comes, at St. Wendel, and were obliged to confess that their beatific vision was only a lie. Thereupon they were sentenced to be placed in an educational institution for culprits under twelve years of age. —Rev. James F. Clark, missionary to Turkey, says that there are three influences which are specially unfavorable to the establishment of Protestant missions among the Bulgarians. (1.) The offer which the Pope has made to grant internal freedom in their church matters if they would accept protection and own his supremacy. (2.) The national feeling which has kept the Bulgarians a separate people for more than a thousand years, and resists any influence which seems to them liable to detract from the oneness of the nation. (3.) The infidelity which the younger Bulgarians, in their zeal for education, have embraced in France and other parts of Europe, whither they went to seek learning. —Mr. Clark further states that this is a time of special importance to the Bulgarian nation, aside from its complication with the Turkish troubles, since, during the past year, the government has conceded to the people the right of the church which shall be independent of the Greek See at Constantinople, with which they have been merged since 1767. The form of their new church the people have yet to decide, and naturally great anxiety is felt that it shall be so shaped as to advance the cause of Christianity in Bulgaria. —The rage against the Turks is beginning to abate somewhat, and the Christians of Europe are beginning to ask whether a change from Turkish to Russian rule would be so very beneficial after all. Perhaps under Russian rule Christians would not be butchered wholesale, but they would be subjected to persecutions which would go to any length short of death. Let him who doubts this read the following extract from the Russian Criminal Code:— Art. 207. Whoever endeavors, by preaching or writing, to seduce members of the Orthodox Church to join any other Christian community, will be punished, the first time with the loss of some of his special rights, and imprisonment for one or two years in a house of correction; the second time with imprisonment in a fortress from four to six years; the third time with the loss of all his personal and social civil rights and status, and transportation for life to Tobolsk or Tomsk (Siberia), with imprisonment of one or two years."